The information used
below is used with permission from the author Ralph Milton.

Mirabile Dictu 26

Brush up your Latin
* "Domino vobiscum" (The pizza guy is
here.)
* "Sharpei diem" (Seize
the wrinkled dog.)
* "Nucleo predicus
dispella conducticus"
(Remove foil before microwaving.)
* "Motorolus interruptus"
(Hold on, I'm going into a tunnel.)
* "Bodicus mutilatimus
unemploymi forevercus"
(Better take the nose ring out before the job interview.)
* "
* "Veni, vidi, Pesci" (I came, I saw, I moidered
da bum.)
* "Veni, vidi,
Velcro" (I came; I saw; I stuck around.)
* "Robotisticus Governantimus
Inevitabilitus" (Al Gore is going to be
President.)
* "Ignoramus microsoftis multa pecunia dat"
(Yeah, where DO I want to go today??)
* "Sic semper tyrannus"
(Your dinosaur is ill.)
* "No Quid Pro Quo" (I'm sorry, we're all
out of quid.)
* "Tempo fugit" (I drove my Ford off a bridge.)
* "E pluribus septum" (Multiple nose piercings.)
Mirabile Dictu 27

The following are from the mouths of
babes. Or students writing exams. Or
from some wisenheimer wanting something to post on the internet.
* The inhabitants of
* A census taker is a man who goes from house to house increasing the
population.
* The general direction of the
* A virgin forest is a forest where the human hand has never set foot.
* The people who followed the Lord were called the 12 opossums.
* One of the main causes of dust is janitors.
* A scout respects all duly constipated authorities.
* The blood circulates through the body by flowing down one leg and up the
other.
* Syntax is all the money collected at the church from sinners.
* The climate is hottest next to the Creator.
Mirabile Dictu 28

These slightly heretical "bumper
stickers in heaven" are from Evelyn McLachlan who is lucky we don't burn too many people at the
stake anymore.
* Honk if you ARE Jesus
* Ask Me About My Previous Lives
* I Brake For Celestial Choirs
* I Died and Went To Heaven and All I Got Was This Lousy Halo
Mirabile Dictu 29

There is no egg in
eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins weren't invented in
We take
English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand
can work slowly, some freeways charge a toll, boxing rings are square and a
guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
And why is
it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers
don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of
tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices?
Doesn't it
seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend, that you comb through
the annals of history but not a single annal? If you
have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you
call it?
If teachers
taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian
eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? If you wrote a
letter, perhaps you bote your tongue?
In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by
truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? Park on driveways and drive on parkways?
How can a
slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and wise guy are
opposites? How can overlook and oversee be opposites, while quite a lot and
quite a few are alike?
How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell another?
Mirabile Dictu 30

This from John Cockburn:
* Adult: A person who has stopped growing at both ends and is now growing in
the middle.
* Cannibal: Someone who is fed up with people.
* Chickens: The only animals you eat before they are born and after they are
dead.
* Committee: A body that keeps minutes and wastes hours.
* Dust: Mud with the juice and the fun squeezed out.
* Egotist: Someone who is usually me-deep in conversation.
* Handkerchief: Cold storage.
* Inflation: Cutting money in half without damaging the paper.
* Mosquito: An insect that makes you like flies better.
* Raisin: Grape with a sunburn.
* Secret: Something you tell to one person at a time.
* Skeleton: A bunch of bones with the person scraped off.
* Toothache: The pain that drives you to extraction.
* Tomorrow: One of the greatest labor-saving devices of today.
* Yawn: An honest opinion openly expressed.
* Wrinkles: Something other people have. I have character lines.